Of Wicked Blood (The Quatrefoil Chronicles #1) - Olivia Wildenstein Page 0,16

probably thought you’d be safer away from it and kidnapped you.” He finally looks back at me. “I only found out that you were alive a few years ago.” Then he adds as if it’s a good thing: “Since then, I’ve had my people track you. You seemed safe, so I didn’t intervene.”

“A few years ago.” I can’t help but laugh. “I don’t know what safe means to you, but at no point was I safe. I had foster parents break my bones, other kids try to kill me. I scrounged like a rat most of my life.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “But here you are, alive and well. Safe.”

“No thanks to you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he says slowly. “Didn’t you ever wonder about Vincent?”

Vincent was my fourth foster father. The one who planted that steak knife in the fleshy part of my hand the night I told him not to involve Bastian in his drug runs. The old man used to rough me up, but the knife was something else. A week after the incident, the day I’d planned on running away with Bastian, Vincent didn’t come home. Just up and vanished.

I narrow my eyes. “You made him disappear?” He doesn’t answer me, which I suppose is answer enough. “Why didn’t you ever help in any other way? Why didn’t you reach out? Send a check? Something? Anything?”

Fuck, I sound desperate.

I am not a desperate person.

He shrugs. “It really wasn’t my place to get involved.”

The rage suddenly coursing through me is like liquid fire inside my veins. I ball my fists so my nails gouge my palms through the leather. “More like, it wasn’t convenient for you to get involved.”

“So young and yet already so jaded.”

I’m devoured by the savage urge to throw him out the floor-to-ceiling window, chair and all, but he’s the only one who can answer my questions. Questions that have been burning my gut long enough to give me an ulcer.

“So why did I grow up with the name Ardoin? Why did no one tell me about my parents? Why did social services act like I was a stray?”

“Because whoever hid you found it prudent to keep your existence a secret.” He runs a hand over the glass desk. “Your parents were very influential in Brume, and with great influence comes great enemies.”

I want to make a joke. Something about him copping lines from Spiderman, but a needle of ice pierces my chest. “Are you saying my parents were murdered?”

An emotion crosses Rainier’s face, making his jaw tick and his eyes darken. “Non. They perished in a fire.”

“But—”

“A fire. No foul play was involved. It’s as simple as that, Monsieur Ardoin.”

None of this is simple.

He moves toward the low row of metal filing cabinets that runs the length of the wall across from the bookshelves. Over it stretches a yellowed scroll of parchment encased in plexiglass. Drawings of triangles, black bugs, quartered human bodies, and strange plants are interspersed with cramped lines of script, burn marks, and ink smudges.

A drawer clanks shut, pulling me from my observation. And then Rainier is parking himself back behind his desk and slapping a file on it. My name—well, the name Roland, Rémy—graces a label glued on the tab.

“Enough of this. Let’s get down to the matter at hand—your studies. I’ve taken the liberty of enrolling you in a variety of classes to find out your strengths and shortcomings.”

“About your little university . . . j’en ai rien à branler, De Morel. I came here for answers. And if you won’t give them to me, I’m leaving Brume.”

His pupils seem to pulse with annoyance. “I summoned you for a reason.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “You summoned me?”

“As one of the founding family members, you’re to be a part of the Quatrefoil Council meeting in two weeks.”

“Quatre-whatta Council?”

“Quatrefoil.” He gestures to the ashtray. “Surely you’ve noticed the shape is an integral part of Brumian history. It’s the symbol for the magic birthed here centuries ago.”

I snort.

“Whether you believe in magic or not, Monsieur Ardoin, understand that there is a Council, a very ancient and very real one, and it believes magic exists. Now that you are over eighteen, it is your duty and your birthright to claim your seat at the table.”

And Bastian thinks I’m drunk? What’s wrong with these people? But then I remember the ring that won’t come off.

I thumb it through the leather. “You can’t exclude me for twenty years and then suddenly expect me to